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EUGENE M. DOMBROWSKI v. PAMELA NOYES-DOMBROWSKI (SC 17312)
Sullivan, C. J., and Borden, Norcott, Palmer and Vertefeuille, Js. Argued January 12--officially released March 29, 2005

Lori Welch-Rubin, with whom, on the brief, was David Rubin, for the appellant (defendant). Trisha M. Morris, with whom was Bernard C. Christianson, for the appellee (plaintiff).
Opinion

NORCOTT, J. The sole issue in this appeal is the proper characterization and distribution of the lottery winnings of the defendant, Pamela Noyes-Dombrowski, attendant to a dissolution of marriage action. The defendant appeals1 from the judgment of the trial court that awarded the plaintiff, Eugene M. Dombrowski, a nonmodifiable one half of the defendant's future lottery payments minus his current salary, and classified that money as alimony for the purpose of allowing the defendant to take a tax deduction for it. On appeal, the defen-

dant claims that the trial court improperly: (1) characterized as alimony lottery proceeds that actually are marital property; and (2) considered gender-based presumptions in rendering the award. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. The following relevant facts are undisputed. The plaintiff and the defendant were married on November 4, 1989. Both are high school graduates, although the plaintiff has had some additional technical training. The plaintiff was employed by Metro-North Commuter Railroad for the entire duration of the marriage. The defendant, by contrast, worked at the Knights of Columbus for the first seven years of the marriage and then no longer was employed. At the time of the dissolution on September 19, 2003, the plaintiff was forty-one years old and the defendant was forty-three; they were both in good health and did not have any children. Their marriage ultimately was dissolved on grounds of irretrievable breakdown, which the trial court noted had nothing to do with the lottery winnings. Both parties contributed financially to their marital relationship, even though they maintained separate checking accounts and had independent social lives.2 Initially, they lived in a condominium that the plaintiff owned before the marriage. Prior to the lottery win, he generally paid the expenses related to the condominium, as well as 60 percent of the joint household expenses, while the defendant paid for entertainment, as well as the remaining household expenses, commensurate with the difference in their respective salaries. Since her early twenties, the defendant regularly spent $3 of her money several times per week purchasing lottery tickets; this was a practice that the plaintiff discouraged. In 1992, the defendant won a $7 million lottery jackpot, which she elected to receive in annual installments of approximately $384,680 over a twenty year period. The defendant initially hid the news of her winnings from her husband for five weeks. In court, she testified that she considered it to be her own money because she had purchased the ticket and the plaintiff never had supported her in that endeavor. Indeed, for the remaining time that the couple was married, the defendant had full control over all purchases made with the lottery money. In 1995, three years after her win, the defendant used some of the lottery proceeds to purchase a home, which she put in their joint names. Additionally, she purchased a 2001 GMC truck for the plaintiff, opened joint investment accounts and began paying the majority of the bills, including the mortgage and utility bills, as well as the plaintiff's credit card bills. The defendant essentially took over the plaintiff's previous proportion of financial contributions to the marriage. Meanwhile, the defendant continued to drift further apart from the plaintiff, emotionally and otherwise, during this time, and ulti-

mately decided to move out of their home eighteen months prior to their dissolution.3 Upon dissolution, after a hearing, the trial court concluded that the parties had treated their marriage as an economic partnership although not a social partnership; accordingly, it divided their assets so as to award the plaintiff one half of all of them, excluding the home, for which he would receive a credit. It also awarded the plaintiff the nonmodifiable sum of one half of the defendant's future annual lottery proceeds, minus his current salary,4 and characterized those annual payments as alimony, specifying its intentions regarding the tax consequences thereof. Specifically, the court stated that ``the continuing lottery payments, one half minus the [plaintiff's] yearly salary should go to the [plaintiff] and that's pre-tax. The court would classify that as alimony so the [defendant] can take the tax deduction . . . .'' This appeal followed. On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly characterized the lottery winnings as alimony as opposed to marital property because: (1) the trial court treated the lottery payments as marital property in its division of assets notwithstanding the label of alimony; and (2) the trial court's order is inconsistent with the definition of alimony set forth in the Internal Revenue Code. The defendant also claims that the trial court improperly based its decision regarding the division of lottery proceeds on a gender assumption in violation of General Statutes

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